ma famille étrange
by ace.sodapop
Summary: here is where inoue sora ends up. oneshot.


author: soda!!  
notes: written and scrapped for a long time; looked at it again, revised it to make it less obvious that the original character MIGHT AS WELL BE ME AHAHAHA ahem i mean. it's readable, now! bearable.  
disclaimers: do not own bleach or any of its characters, just the random OC in here who basically only serves as a more talkative vehicle to interplay with sora's own actions and personal afterlife turmoil and uh steal her if you really want i guess ahaha _like anyone will_

**ma famille étrange**

It took ages for her to sum up the courage to talk to the attractive newcomer (who, by the time she had summed the right quantity (and even quality) of said courage, was hardly even fit to be called a newcomer any longer), and when she did, she didn't have any idea what to say.

"Are you alright?" Inquisitive blue grey eyes, quiet and gentle and calm like the sea (idiot, she told herself waspishly, you've never even _seen _the sea, wait until after you've introduced yourself to start thinking of him with silly romantic metaphors) peered speculatively into hers, concerned and a touch amused.

"Oh yes, I'm fantastic!" She trilled, with a terribly unfortunate squeak at the last syllable. Come on, pull yourself together, what are you a _teenage boy_.

"You came running up towards me and suddenly stopped, for about a minute." He smiled kindly. "Are you sure?"

She nodded wildly. His hair was a gorgeous warm brown color, like raw cinnamon and butter baked and bleached together in the sun doused with honey. (oh _god, _she's already moved on to food metaphors. it's not even like she's hungry! she hasn't been hungry for twenty years!) This close, it looked even silkier than it already did from a safe, less stalker-like distance, and why, _why _was she going on like a school girl, this was Saito Go all over again, only this one had less greasy-looking hair and didn't appear to have ever listened to weird American rock records with naked people on the album art.

"How long have you been here?" She warbled out, sounding not unlike a bird, and not a lark or robin either, it had a sort of..._stork_ quality to it.

It's a dumb question, and they both know it, but hey, it was a decent conversation starter (and not just because you couldn't exactly go around and ask, hey, did you see that new jackie chan yet, or even wow! that's an incredible sack of rags you're wearing, is it christian lacroix? chanel? or maybe comme des garçons, that does look quite like one of the pieces from kawakubo rei's fall line. yes, i agree, i don't quite understand the whole 'avant-garde' element in her work, but it is very interesting, don't you think?) her palms were getting sweaty; she wiped them discreetly at her sides.

He smiled again, but it's brittle and tired and she wants to help him _move on_, because it's obvious that's where the problem is.

"Five months." He said distantly (actually it is four-and-a-half, she's kept track), like he's just a visitor out of the country on holiday, and waiting the free days away to return home. And that's how they always are, _all of them_, but she's not so old here that she's disinterested and jaded, and, damn it, she _likes _him, she wants to help, because he looks worse off than everyone else.

"And you?"

She giggled crookedly, awkwardly, nervously. "I can at least understand most the same things that happened in this century. I was around for _pakku-man_! Do you know _pakku-man_?"

"Yeah?" He twitches his lips. "Were you around for...say, Pocky?"

"Love it!" She squeaks.

"And…Pepero?"

"Cheapskate Korean copycats!" She says with real national pride, as any real Japanese would when it came to defending their country's patents on popular snack foods.

"Tiananmen Square?"

She saluted in poor execution of military form. (Actually, she was trying to do a Nazi salute, but her memory was too foggy—though she was a bit a ways off either way. Not her blame, only human, etc etc.)

He pursed his lips very slightly, so slight and so unconscious of it, it was _adorable_, she was going to _die _(again, and for happier causes than the last time). The upside, of course, was that he actually seemed to be enjoying somewhat this culture game, a history exam in its barest forms, and completely bizarre nonsense to the 19th century stragglers passing by and staring at them.

"Star Wars?"

She wrinkled her nose. "What a _terrible _ending for a trilogy."

"Bruce Lee?"

"Very sad death," She noted. "But aren't you going backwards now?"

"Berlin wall?"

"Ahhh yes, the...wait, what?" Her tone drops in surprise at finally being duped.

He smiles, again, and looks off to the distance, the sky, somewhere she can't really connect with because he is too distant but that is OK, from this angle he is simply heartbreakingly beautifulto look at and ohgod _stop embarrassing yourself_, just stop, even if he does look drop dead gorgeous.

"I wonder what's going on in the world right now," he finally muses aloud. "What will I miss out on?"

She looked curiously at him. He was pretty to look at, all right, but strange. Unusually attached to and stuck on to the human world, even after such a passage of time in a world where it was all too easy to forget what the time was. This guy, by his attitude, should still be locked down there tormenting himself, chained to some weird building or cave of his fancy or maybe even a pretty girl—

Her stomach dropped. She hadn't considered that. Though she should have the upper hand obviously, considering the girl was in a different world and ALIVE, while she was standing next to her deceased boyfriend, like, TWO INCHES AWAY, seriously, and there's no way to fight with that kind of interdimensional competition, right? Why was she still nervous? Her mother had always told her her confidence level was awful. Being jealous of a metaphorical pretty girlfriend in another world—augh, but it was still making her anxious.

"Do you miss her?" She asked boldly, surprising even herself.

He was just as surprised, but recovered before her personal shock at her own audacity. "I do, actually." The smile was sadder this time, but no less handsome. "I really, really do. But she asked me to move on. It's just…hard, after so long."

They acted on their own. Her fingers found their way toward his. She was embarrassed by the sheer difference in mass of their hands, and how much shorter in fact she is to his comparatively lanky height. He noticed it too, maybe, because he looks at her fingers wrapped around his in surprise and looks down at the length of her and sort of—_smiles _(her heart beats painfully fast) and squeezes her hand gratefully.

"It gets easier, after a while. And you know, people start whole new lives here! I mean sure there's no Famicon to play on (do they still have those? because they're the best things in the world, seriously, I was so addicted) and everything is kind of weirdly 18th century-ish here, like, you would think they'd figure out better plumbing by now, but hey! It's nice and quiet, and you find cool people around." She giggled timidly.

They maybe sort of realize at the same time that their hands are still joined together. She pulled away, mortified by her own actions, but surprisingly, he won't let go.

"What's your name?"

Her breath caught in her throat. (she does her best to capture it back immediately after) "Rika."

It's not the done thing to use your family name in the Rukongai, she hoped he knew that much at the very least. In Soul Society, you start whole new families.

No, he knew that already, certainly—many people tell it to each other several times a day, as if to reassure themselves. The change was, he was beginning to look and feel alright about such a circumstance.

"Rika—that's a very pretty name. I am I—Sora." Jokingly, she shook her hand all business-like, the one still attached to his. She can't help but laugh a little, and he even cracks a wry grin, never letting go the whole while.

* * *

**author's notes:****comme des garcons** is a fashion label founded by **kawakubo rei **in 1969, notorious for crossing oceans into the western world in the 80's—early 90's during the 'grunge' movement and challenging western ideas of traditional shape and cut in fashion. **pakku-man **is the original japanese title for the iconic 80's video game known commonly in the U.S. as **pac-man**. **pepero/ppaeppaero**, manufactured by LOTTE since 1983,is the korean replica of the more well-known **pocky **cookie sticks, the latter having been established in the 60s. however, LOTTE created a hugely successful marketing strategy called **pepero day **which became so popular that a similar day was inaugurated for pocky in 1999. tiananmen square protests, the series of student demonstrations against the chinese communist party, took place between april and june of 1989. the last episode of the original **star wars** trilogy, **return of the jedi**, was released in 1983. **bruce lee**, the martial arts artist and entertainer, died in 1973. and the **berlin wall**, though constructed in 1961 as an iconic symbol of the cold war, was culturally fallen by november of 1989. 

taking all that instantwikipedia (mm it's delicious!!) information in, rika died sometime between the months of june and november in the year of 1989. or she just didn't hear about the fall of the berlin wall. which seems unlikely, so let's just say she became officially deceased sometime in the fall of 1989.


End file.
